Jamie's Italy

5 years ago, I was given one of my favorite cookbooks for Christmas, The Naked Chef (aff). Chef Jamie Oliver’s debut cookbook companion to his Food Network show of the same title. Oliver’s original premise for The Naked Chef was simple: stripped-down recipes that we can all make at home and retain that dining elegance that we sometimes strive for when preparing meals. And the book accomplished what it set out to do. I cooked so many of those recipes and most of them turned out well. I loved the book for what is was and have put many of the recipes into my personal repertoire.

Then came a series of sequel cookbooks, The Naked Chef Takes Off, Jamie's Dinners, and Jamie’s Kitchen, each new release becoming more disappointing than the previous. The recipes became complex, time-consuming, and never turned out exactly the way the recipe (and picture) suggested. The original premise long gone, the cookbooks seemed to just fade into the background of massive, hardcover collections of gourmet recipes with beautiful full-color photos to accompany them.

Since the original book, Jamie has set off on other quests, such as obesity awareness and homeless awareness. And now, to accompany his television show Jamie's Italy (aff), we get the giant cookbook of the same name. The book and show follow Jamie as he tours around the country of Italy, mixing and mingling with the locals, and getting a glimpse of what true Italian food is all about. Not the kind served at Olive Garden or Spago. We’re talking about real home-cooked food by Italian families for Italian families.

Once again, Oliver takes us through a journey of complex food, some of which would be very foreign to a lot of people on this planet. Dishes like bruschette and risotto bianco con pesto tempt the palette, Altamura Pea Soup mystifies us with its rustic goodness. Then Jamie goes to the freaky side with le migliori polpette di tonno (tuna meatballs).

Not having ever been to Italy, it is hard for me to actually say that these dishes are authentic, so we just have to take Jamie’s word for it.

I’m including this book in my Holiday Gift Guide because I think that this book is a good gift. If you have a Jamie Oliver fan in your family, he or she will love it. As always, the book is very well produced, sporting full-color photos on nearly every spread. The recipes are mostly mouth-watering, and the stories that Jamie tells are very endearing. There’s even a wonderful chapter full of photos of animals being slaughtered, complete with blood-letting and de-gutting.

As a cookbook, I wouldn’t give this one as a gift. Sitting here in the middle of Texas, I can’t imagine wanting to cook many of these dishes, much less hold open the massive hardbound cover just to see a list of ingredients.

But the book has a certain charm to it. The design is clean yet rustic, and I could see it sitting proudly on top of the magazines of your coffee table.